The manufacture of strong, longlived wood golf club heads presents special problems. Typically, the conventional, wood club clubhead is a shaped body having a more or less angled, flattened striking face, a toe and a heel, a flattened sole and a rounded topside. An angled, but generally upwardly extending neck is formed integrally with the clubhead and projects generally upwardly from the heel side or end of the wood golf club head.
There is an inherent conflict in the use of an integral, single piece of wood to form the clubhead of a wood golf club. Thus, with respect to the striking of the ball, the optimum arrangement of the grain would be for it to be aligned with the strike (like the grain in a mallet head) for strength. However, it is necessary to provide the clubhead with the grain running down the neckline or excessive breakage is encountered. Even when the latter grain pattern is provided, as the neck of the clubhead is tapered upwardly, end grain is left, which permits splitting in the neck zone of the golf club.
Basically, wood golf clubs, per se, are quite simple (in principle) in construction. That is, there is the wood head of the club which conventionally includes the angled, but generally upwardly extending neck, the shaft of the club, the grip on the upper end of the shaft and means for securing the shaft to the clubhead. In the conventional connection, the downwardly tapering neck portion of the wood golf club is drilled out to receive the elongate, conventionally downwardly tapered, lower end of the hollow metal shaft. Once the shaft has been inserted into the drilled out portion of the neck and clubhead, the heel of the clubhead is drilled from the rear forwardly through the metal shaft and a threaded pin inset, thus to lock the hollow steel shaft against rotation in the clubhead or pulling out therefrom.
With respect to the visible portion of the securement of the conventional shaft to the conventional clubhead, it is ancient and customary in the industry to either wrap string around the upper portion of the clubhead neck and the lower portion of the golf club shaft and leave such exposed, or, alternatively, cover this winding with a plastic collar. Such string and such collar are conventionally black. Sometimes the plastic collar is put on and the string is not used.
The first five woods are well-known to almost every golfer. These comprise the No. 1 (driver), No. 2 (brassie), No. 3 (spoon), No. 4 (cleek) and No. 5 (baffy). However, many golfers have sets of ten woods, numbered 1 through 10. The No. 5 wood plays about the same distance as a No. 3 iron, the No. 6 wood like a No. 4 iron, etc. down to the No. 10 wood like the No. 8 iron. The No. 10 wood, playing about like the 8 iron, is the practical minimum distance for a wood club. Typically, the loft differential between individual ones of such a set of ten is only 3.degree. per club.
The following table of Average Specifications For Men's Woods gives, for the said ten woods (1 through 10) the width and depth of various head sizes, as well as the lie, loft and average length of all men's models.
The breakage problem with wood golf club heads is particularly present with the more lofted woods.
There are particular fitting problems with wood golf clubs which must be taken into account with respect to an individual golfer's playing characteristics which relate to the relationship of the neck of the wood gold club head and the head proper. Thus, the proper lie of the club differs from golfer to golfer. For example, when two golfers take a comfortable stance with their drivers, the perpendicular distance from the center of the tip of the shaft to the floor will typically differ. This means that the angle of the neck with respect to the head of the club, when viewed from the striking face of the head, will differ from golfer to golfer, or may so differ.
Next, there is the question of whether the golfer tends to hook long shots or tends to slice them. This means, for a given golfer, that the hitting face may best preferably be angled somewhat one way or the other, depending upon the golfers natural hitting tendency with a wood club. Said simply, for a natural slicer, the angle of the hitting face best differs than for a natural hooker. This means that the angle of the neck going into the head of the club, when the clubhead is used from above will be positioned at a different angle relative the striking face for a normally hooking golfer than for a normally slicing golfer.
Thus, it may be seen that it would be desirable to eliminate the neck of wood golf clubs, provided that a connecting means between the clubhead, per se and the lower end of the shaft may be developed which will permit the solution of the various problems above enumerated. My U.S. Pat. No. 3,519,271, issued July 7, 1970 for "Shaft and Clubhead Attaching Means" is a first step toward satisfactorily solving the problems of eliminating the neck of a wood golf club, while yet providing means for dealing with such problems. The instant development is particularly directed to providing an improved connection having use over the entire range of wood golf clubs independent of the markedly varying angles of the club striking faces.
Still another point with respect to conventional wood golf clubs is that the neck of these clubs is an important source of wind drag as the club is swung. In the instant improvement, by eliminating the conventional wood club neck construction, the said wind drag caused by this portion of the club has been substantially eliminated.
TABLE I __________________________________________________________________________ AVERAGE SPECIFICATIONS FOR MEN'S WOODS __________________________________________________________________________ AVERAGE MEDIUM DEEP HEAD MEDIUM SMALL HEAD NARROW HEAD ALL MEN'S MODELS Average Width Depth Width Depth Width Depth Lie Loft Length __________________________________________________________________________ Driver No. 1 2-30/32" 1-9/16" 2-14/16" 1-1/2" 2-20/32" 1-14/32" 54 10-12 43 Brassie No. 2 2-29/32" 1-13/32" 2-13/16" 1-11/32" 2-20/32" 1-12/32" 55 13-15 42-1/2 Spoon No. 3 2-28/32" 1-5/16" 2-12/16" 1-9/32" 2-20/32" 1-10/32" 56 16-18 42 Cleek No. 4 2-23/32" 1-9/32" 2-11/16" 1-1/4" 2-20/32" 1-9/32" 57 19-21 41-1/2 Baffy No. 5 2-20/32" 1-1/4" 2-10/16" 1-7/32" 2-20/32" 1-9/32" 58 22-24 41 No. 6 Wood 2-20/32" 1-9/32" 2-9/16" 1-9/32" 2-20/32" 1-9/32" 59 25-27 40-1/4 No. 7 Wood 2-20/32" 1-10/32" 2-9/16" 1-10/32" 2-20/32" 1-10/32" 60 28-30 39-1/2 No. 8 Wood 2-20/32" 1-11/32" 2-9/16" 1-11/32" 2-20/32" 1-11/32" 61 31-33 38-3/4 No. 9 Wood 2-20/32" 1-12/32" 2-9/16" 1-12/32" 2-20/32" 1-12/32" 62 34-36 38 No. 10 Wood 2-20/32" 1-13/32" 2-9/16" 1-13/32" 2-20/32" 1-13/32" 63 37-39 37-1/4 __________________________________________________________________________